Painted Background on a 150 gallon planted?-UPDATED WITH PICS

I have been lurking for a year or so but now I have some questions. What do you think looks best as a background for a large planted tank with angels? The tank frame and stand are black. Waiting for the BUILDMYLED show tank lights. two- 48 inch 75 degree angle lights pick by Nick the owner of the business after a LONG conversion of what I am doing with my tank. They will be hanging from the ceiling a foot off the tank. SO....sorry to be long winded but it will be a techy looking tank but heavily planted. Most of the background is blocked by plants but the stray cord peeking through drives me crazy!

Try painting the outside of the glass. If you want some kind of picture, you'll have to do it in reverse order. Wish I could make it more understandable. Similar to how they do it in the windows of Fast food chains.
No worries for contaminants that way.

Painting the glass can be very simple or overly complicated. I prefer very simple goto your local craft type store find some cheap water based acrylic craft paint generally runs 1$ or 2$ for a 4oz bottle. you'll need to thin the paint with a little water then either brush it on or use a foam roller. As stated before this is much easier if the tank is empty . These paints are non toxic and water based so no special masks are required I still wouldn't want to get any in the tank but it works well and if later on down the line you decide you don't like it it's easily removable with a razor blade it peels of in sheets.

Painting the glass can be very simple or overly complicated. I prefer very simple goto your local craft type store find some cheap water based acrylic craft paint generally runs 1$ or 2$ for a 4oz bottle.

So how may 4oz. bottles do you think it will take to paint a 150gl tank?

I painted a 125gal with one of Home depot 2.99 samples of latex and their 2.96 mini rollers. two coats and done.

But I now use poster board taped to the frame of the tank. for whatever reason having even a small gap between the glass and the background prevents all the little floaty things in the water from being visible. of course this is on my 75gal that has a overflow box slightly off center so there are no seams.
--this is also easy to install, cheap, and easy to change

THe african 55 I had set up for years I used black felt for a backdrop. Just added some velcro to the tank around the perimeter and to the cut to size piece of fabric. I was a bit lazy and didnt make the corners super tight, but you could make it with finished edged and take care of that

__________________

Nicole

20 g TV tank - ignored it for way too long so battling it back into shape

So how may 4oz. bottles do you think it will take to paint a 150gl tank?

Sorry couldn't resist

I used about 1/2 of a 4 oz bottle to do my 55 with 2 coats of paint so 1 4oz bottle would be enough to get at least 2 coats on a 150. At 1 - 2 $ per bottle it's cheaper and much less toxic then spray paint and even latex paint. And the craft paint is fairly thick so thinning it with a little water will net you a bit more then 4oz probably closer to 6oz.

Honestly it doesn't have to be 100% opaque unless you have a light source behind the tank your trying to block out

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the The Planted Tank Forum forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.